Case Lawrence: Building to amaze.

• Author: Kinder, Peri
• Position: Around Utah: Spotlight

When your company's tagline is "Purveyors of Awesome!" you should be ready for anything, but the explosive growth surrounding CircusTrix has boggled the minds of everyone involved.

CircusTrix's founder/CEO Case Lawrence didn't begin his professional career with the intention of becoming an innovator in adrenaline-based recreation. In the polar opposite of heart-pounding excitment, Lawrence started his career as an attorney and real estate developer in the Bay Area.

The closest he got to an intense sensory experience was when his real estate career exploded with the market crash in 2008. "I got absolutely decimated," he says. "I spent two years trying to work with banks and stay alive. When I finally got back on stable ground, I wanted to go into anything but real estate."

Still recovering financially, Lawrence attended a San Francisco Giants game with his sons, ending up at the House of Air trampoline park after the game. The indoor park was housed in a converted air hangar in the Presidio and featured 8,000 square feet of trampolines.

Lawrence had a blast--and left with a vision.

In 2011, he founded CircusTrix and opened his first trampoline-based park near Fresno. The second park opened in Durham, North Carolina in mid-2012 and he was hooked. Now the company has more than 30 extreme recreation parks spanning American, Europe and Asia, making it the fastest-growing and biggest developer of adrenaline-based parks in the country.

After moving his family and the company headquarters to Utah, Lawrence continued creating ideas to offer safe, but extreme, physical activities. He knows he's riding the wave of a trend, but he thinks he has the key to make the wave last a long time.

"We were innovators when things were forming," Lawrence says. "Being in the right place at the right time is 90 percent of [our success]. We made some good decisions early on, mainly that we wouldn't become a franchise. It's made all the difference."

By keeping ownership of the parks, CircusTrix ensures safety standards, continued innovation and upkeep are...